


Before Him

by RationalistRomantic (Chryses)



Series: Appointment in 221B [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: First Meetings, Flashbacks, John's POV, John's a special child, M/M, implicit mention of depression if you squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-09
Updated: 2017-04-09
Packaged: 2018-10-16 15:59:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10574667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chryses/pseuds/RationalistRomantic
Summary: He wasn’t a monster, not really. That didn’t mean that he hadn’t learned to be cruel.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for the tremendous feedback I've received in "A thing of beauty". To thank you all, I have written this shortie on John's POV prior and during their first meeting. This will likely be the last 'normal-fic' where it mostly sticks to the cannon, which means that there'll be new material (world-building) in the next parts that will have life of its own (hopefully). I haven't decided on what particular order I'll go by, but I'll see when I begin writing it. You do not need to read Part 2 for this, but will need to read Part 1 to understand John's flashbacks. Without further ado, please enjoy!

John Watson had a secret.

 

Or perhaps, that fated meeting really had done his head in.

 

He was sitting in the park bench late afternoon, down in his luck in finding some place where he didn’t have to interact with much people. It was central London after all; moving back here practically screamed the opposite; so maybe peace, tranquility, and all the crap people say in television these days wasn’t exactly what he wanted. That didn’t mean that he couldn’t pursue it.

 

Still. The big question that had been bothering him was trying to recall what exactly it was that he’d seen.

 

His nails bit onto the crown of his head amidst having his face being swallowed up by both hands.

 

**Stop it.**

 

A child from behind his mother’s skirt eyed him weirdly, and his face melded to the closest thing to a smile he could accomplish. The response was immediate, and the little boy hid further behind the fabric. Goddamnit. Why did it happen every single time?

 

His leg protested excessively when he got up, and turned before the mother could say something.

 

Godfuckingdamnit. He hadn’t even thought about bringing an umbrella.

 

With unduly haste, he sprinted towards his current lodgings before the first drop of rain could hit the floor. It didn’t matter that he looked like a lunatic, sprinting like a fucking madman being chased by nonexistent attackers.

 

Sometimes he did think that, sadly, he had yet to encounter anything hollywood-worthy.

 

For now, he settled for dull, and grey, and hoped  -

 

“ **_I could find some use for you_ **.”

 

He shook his head, and waved the thought away. Whenever he left himself to his own thoughts, it kept haunting him, the words. Sometimes he wondered whether it was a pain-induced hallucination, but now it brought sickly miasma in its wake.

 

His fingers were already to his keyboard before he could think about it, and the words just flew away from his fingertips, and onto the keyboard.

 

_Servant_

 

What did he-it say after?

 

The server kept blinking at him, mockingly bright.

 

_Servant_

 

“ **_I could find some use for you_ **.”

 

“ _Not a handbag_.” He had replied.

 

His thoughts were sluggish, treacling like molasses inside an hourglass. Fuck. Maybe he should consider taking the medication like his therapist had suggested.

 

“ _Captain! Captain! You’re going to be okay! Stay still for me!_ ”

 

He could barely react when his hands had caught the falling technology before he could even begin thinking about it. It might’ve been rubbish, but it was the only thing he could afford at the moment.

 

Oh well. Maybe that was his cue to stay the hell away from it.

 

-

 

“So how’s your blog going?”

 

Hateful. Tragic. Rage-inducing. Disappointing. Might he go on?

 

“Fine, it’s...fine.”

 

Her soul gave it away before her face ever could. It was a mellow shifting of greens, and dark shades of blue. She didn’t believe a word, which he supposed was fair game; she was getting paid either way.

 

“You haven’t written a word, have you.” She scribbled onto her notepad.

 

“You wrote ‘still has trust issues’.”

 

“And you read my writing upside down.” And yet another layer of blues joined in, along with spirals and curls of faint pinks, and purple specs. Must be something to do with someone close to her, otherwise she wouldn’t have been so personally offended by his inability to speak his mind.

 

Their verbal spar went on, and he had another ten minutes left before her colours paled to a lighter shade, which meant that she had resigned from the whole thing, and was only fulfilling the time slot. Which was okay, not like he ever expected himself to go through with it anyway.

 

“- and writing a blog about what happened, will honestly help you.”

 

This time, he allowed a bitter smirk (much less guarded when he did with that child) to undertake the lower half of his face. Immediately, he could sense the fear in her, could hear the sharp intake of her breath.

 

He wasn’t a monster, not really. That didn’t mean that he hadn’t learned to be cruel.

 

“Nothing happens to me.”

 

-

 

Following his appointment, he met up again with an old comrade of his: Stamford, Mike. A proud wearer of yellows and neon pinks. As far as John knew, Mike was the only person with whom he’d ever lowered most of his guard against. You wouldn’t believe his surprise that they were as compatible as they were, even a few or so years when he had left his friend in the airport before deployment, all snot-nosed, and miserable before and after his flight came.

 

He went inside the plane with droplets of what may be drool all over his favourite shirt, but could hardly care. Not when it came with warm feelings in its wake.

 

The changes were barely there, but there’s a distinct tinge of darker hues underneath all that glitter. It was red in colour (maybe he found someone?), and it seemed fitting somehow.

 

“- what about you, just staying in town to get yourself all sorted?”

 

“I can’t afford London in an army pension.” He replied automatically, bitterly.

 

“And you can’t bare to be anywhere else; that’s not the John Watson I know.” For a second, he had a sense of proper deja vu with a much younger Stamford saying roughly those same words when he first considered asking a bloke out.

 

He hastily stashed the thoughts away.

 

“- could get a flatshare or something.”

 

He gave a sarcastic laugh, predicting his own soul to reflect harsh colours, and dark contours.

 

“Who’d want me for a flatmate?”

 

To which, surprisingly, Mike gave a laugh of his own, all bright, and amused. The withering of his composure slowed.

 

“What?”

 

“You know, you’re the second person to say that to me today.”

 

Distantly, he heard a quiet chime of a single bell. If that wasn’t a sign for something, then he’d go ahead, and eat his own foot.

 

“Who was the first?”

 

-

 

True to his word, Mike had led him back to Barts. Somehow, he doubted he would’ve avoided the place altogether.

 

There he met with a posh bastard with a barbed tongue, and a strong penchant for the dramatic. Sherlock was..he was interesting, in a strange sort of way. He didn’t regard John with some form of hostility that naturally came with the cane, and treated him as if he was just a piece of furniture. Which should be offending to most people, but he was already in deep if he actually found the bloke’s character quite endearing.

 

The whole interaction came and went faster than he could have ever anticipated, and this Sherlock Holmes was already professing his goodbyes before anything was exchanged, and who was he to pass up something interesting?

 

“Is that it?”

 

The body twitched to a pause for a second too long, before he turned to John with a semblance of temporary interest.

 

His attention then drifted to Sherlock Holmes’ own soul, and found it odd that there was nothing but a void there (maybe he should consider rethinking the whole ‘soul theory’ he had going for him). He knew from the beginning that there was something odd going on, but never knew how to place it properly. How was it even possible not to have one? Maybe it was something translucent? Something dark _and_ translucent? God knows. Anyway, it was an entity that John could not identify, not without taking a closer look, which was...ahem not good.

 

“Is that what?” His tone shifted from barely there, to towering without a proper transition.

 

He took a small breath in. Soldier on.

 

“We just met, we’re going to go look at a flat.”

 

Sherlock Holmes, apparently didn’t have a problem with that. Mike appeared more smug than he had any right to; he acted like he was the second coming, and John couldn’t find it in himself to disagree. Bastard.

 

“We don’t know a thing about each other, I don’t know where we’re meeting, I don’t even know your name.”

 

It was then that Sherlock Holmes burned brightest, and John was left to pick his jaw up from the floor to steady himself at the trail of Sherlock Holmes’ wake.

 

“Fuckin’ hell.”

 

He began to feel dizzy again, that Mike had to go and retrieve him a stool to sit on.

 

“ **_I could find some use for you_ **.”

 

“ _Not a handbag_.”

 

“ _-_ **_though I suppose the most accurate depiction would be, when I had the unfortunate meeting with the servant_ ** _-”_

 

And his eyes flew open, just when Mike began shaking him on the shoulder to get his attention.

 

“John, you okay?”

 

His mouth opened to say something, but a story he hadn’t read in ages had resurfaced, and left him feeling cold, and parched to the throat.

 

“ _-_ **_in Baghdad_ **.”

 


End file.
